The amount of compensatory sweating depends on the patient, the damage that the white rami communicans incurs, and the amount of cell body reorganization in the spinal cord after surgery.
Other potential complications include inadequate resection of the ganglia, gustatory sweating, pneumothorax, cardiac dysfunction, post-operative pain, and finally Horner’s syndrome secondary to resection of the stellate ganglion.
www.ubcmj.com/pdf/ubcmj_2_1_2010_24-29.pdf

After severing the cervical sympathetic trunk, the cells of the cervical sympathetic ganglion undergo transneuronic degeneration
After severing the sympathetic trunk, the cells of its origin undergo complete disintegration within a year.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0442.1967.tb00255.x/abstract

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Pineal Gland after Sympathectomy

H. J. Romijn1

(1) Present address: Department of Electron Microscopy, Netherlands Central Institute for Brain Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Received: 3 March 1975

Summary The ultrastructure of the rabbit pineal gland was investigated after sympathectomy (extirpation or decentralization of the superior cervical ganglia), parasympathectomy, continuous illumination and continuous darkness. The similarity of the ultrastructural changes in the light pinealocytes occurring after sympathectomy and after continuous illumination was striking. It is supposed that these changes have a common cause,viz. the lack of free noradrenaline, the pinealotropic neurotransmitter.
The smooth endoplasmic reticulum present in the terminals of the offshoots of the light pinealocytes is possibly involved in pineal indoleamine synthesis.